


Walls

by grav_ity



Series: grav_ity plays dragon age origins [4]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-01-28
Packaged: 2019-10-18 07:28:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17576522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grav_ity/pseuds/grav_ity
Summary: The night before the Landsmeet, she can tell there's something he's not telling her. (Spoilers: Warden Captured, Achievement Unlocked: First Knight)





	Walls

**Author's Note:**

> It's fine. We're fine. We're all fine here, now. How are you?

The walls of Arl Eamon’s estate house in Denerim were built of stone. The floors were covered with carpets. The doors were sturdy. After so many months on the road in flimsy tents, the sheer privacy of Kentha’s sleeping arrangements made her antsy and uncomfortable, even though her bed was soft and her blankets more than adequate against the evening chill. She was next to Alistair’s room—Eamon’s chamberlain had housed them all according to rank, even though it was next to meaningless as far as Kentha was concerned—and barely an hour of sleepless tossing passed by before she thought to check if he was awake.

The house was quiet as she crept down the corridor. After Sten and the hound had returned with them from the prison at Fort Drakon, Wynne had looked them over. She’d cleaned their cuts and bruises, cast a couple of aura cleanses, and then declared them fit enough before sending them off to the bathhouse to take care of the prison stink. After that, Arl Eamon had sent everyone to bed. It seemed that no one else was having trouble sleeping. That, or the house was so well built she couldn’t hear their pacing the way she would if they were in camp. 

Kentha knocked softly on Alistair’s door, and entered when she heard his soft permission. He wasn’t even in bed, let alone trying to sleep, as far as she could tell. There were two chairs in front of the fire, and he sat in one of them. He’d left his armour off after bathing, and wore light clothes for sleeping instead. His feet were bare, held out to the fire, and he didn’t stand up to greet her.

“You can’t sleep either?” Alistair said.

“No,” she said. “It’s too quiet.”

“I’m happy to fill the air with meaningless chatter,” Alistair said lightly. “But I don’t think that’s what you’re here for.”

It wasn’t, but she also wasn’t in any particular hurry. He gestured for her to sit, but instead of taking the other chair, she moved closer to the one he already sat in. It was wide and over-stuffed, in the current style. It wasn’t big enough for two people if proper propriety was being observed, but it would certainly do for two people who were friendly.

“I was going to come and check on you,” he said as she settled in, half on top of him and half beside. “But I was worried I would wake the hound, and honestly I can only deal with one of you at a time.”

“He’s warming up to you,” Kentha said, breathing a laugh as he had intended her to do. Between the warmth of his body and the crackling of the fire, it was almost like home.

“That’s part of the problem,” Alistair said. He moved her elbow to a place where she was less likely to ram him if they moved. “Receiving affection from the pair of you simultaneously is more than any man could stand.”

This time, her laugh was louder, a ringing tone in the stone of the room, and he looked very pleased with himself. For a time they sat quietly, soaking in the presence of the other as though everything was fine and the Blight wasn’t breathing down their necks on top of the political problems they were having. She thought he might have fallen asleep and was debating how best to get him to bed when he spoke again.

“Are you really all right?” he asked. “After today, I mean. I know Wynne said you were fine, but…”

His voice trailed off the way it always did when he was worried that he had overstepped.

“I’m fine, Alistair,” she said. A pause. “Are you?”

“I didn’t know where to look,” he admitted. “When we were in the cell, I mean. You know I have no problem with your being naked, but it wasn’t the same.”

“You were nearly naked, too,” she pointed out. “And we both stripped off to pass Andraste’s last test.”

“I recall,” he said. The mountaintop had been absolutely freezing. “But it’s different and I can’t explain why, just that it made me angry and I didn’t know what to do about it.”

“I didn’t enjoy it, if you were curious,” she said. She knew he would find the words he was after eventually, and she was so comfortable sitting with him like this she didn’t really care how long it took.

“I never imagined that you did,” he replied. “But, look, a man takes his shirt off to haul water or chop firewood, and no one thinks twice about it. I wasn’t delighted to give up my trousers, but I still felt like you were more naked than I was, and I hated the idea of anyone making you do it.”

His voice had changed. Before, he spoke everything like he was half-prepared to retreat. Now, even when he was speaking lightly, there was more power in his tone. It wasn’t just when he was talking to her, and she couldn’t have pinpointed exactly when it started, but it reminded her of their goals even as it made something inside of her twist.

“When you’re King,” she said. “Make a rule about how prisoners must be dressed.”

“You’re not even joking,” he said. His fingers were on her arm, touch light against the cloth. She wanted a great deal more.

“Maybe a little bit,” she said. “But that’s why I think you’d been good at the job. You can deal with something as big as a Blight and still worry about the personal comfort of the people around you.”

“I don’t really want to deal with any of that,” he said. It felt like a habit.

“But you do,” she said. “Because you can and because it needs doing.”

“Why do you think I have no trouble believing in you but I can’t imagine why you believe in me?” he asked.

She shifted so that she was sitting entirely in his lap, her legs thrown over the arm of the chair. She kissed him, her hands sliding into his hair and pulling down, holding him in place. She moved away, and he tried to follow her, but couldn’t escape her grip.

“Practice,” she said, as though it were that simple to undo years of hiding and making himself second best.

He stood, carrying her over to the bed, and set her down beside it. The counterpane was already pulled back, but after he finished stripping off her nightclothes, he didn’t let her lie down. Instead, he pushed her knees so that she sat on the edge of the bed, and then reached over for one of the pillows.

His eyes locked with hers as he dropped the pillow on the floor, and pushed her legs apart. The man she would see on the throne of Fereldon knelt before her, gaze fixed on hers, and then his hands slid up her thighs, and he bent.

She wanted to watch, wanted to see the way the muscles in his shoulders corded as he moved, and catch the glances up at her face to assure himself that she was all right, but under the heat of his tongue, she couldn’t keep her eyes open. Her fingers gripped the side of the bed as he pulled her along. He hadn’t used his mouth on her before, but clearly he had been giving it some thought.

She came in a rush of pounding heart and gasping breath, and fell back on the mattress. He didn’t stop and it was almost too much for her to bear. She remembered that the walls were stone and she didn’t have to be quiet, and every noise she made seemed to egg him on. His hand moved, and a moment later she felt the press of one finger, and then two.

Desire and discomfort threaded through her, the want of not enough warring with the feeling of too much. She clung to the former, pleading with him for just a little bit more. He was relentless, and the feel of him pushed her back towards the edge.

“Alistair!” Kentha threw her head back into the sheets. She would have sworn she felt him smile, and then his fingers crooked inside of her and she came apart again.

When she returned herself, he was wiping his mouth on the sheet. He moved her up to the head of the bed, and crawled in beside her. She turned into him, tucking her head under his chin and breathing in. His hands soothed her back and he murmured sweet nothings to her until she breathed evenly.

There was something that nagged at her. Something he hadn’t said. But then he moved away to get the blankets and tuck them both in, and she forgot. She didn’t fight the sleep that came for her now. Tomorrow was the Landsmeet, and after that, they would go on as they had: each day after the other, but together against the evils of the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Friends, I _really_ like this game.


End file.
